Ban Fighting in Hockey?
What is wrong with this country? Every couple of years somebody in Canada thinks it would be a good idea to ban fighting in the National Hockey League. Today the Globe and Mail published this:
A recent Harris-Decima poll found that 54 per cent of Canadians believe the NHL should ban fighting, while 40 per cent favoured continuing to penalize it with five-minute major penalties.
Have we become a nation of wimps? You can’t ban fighting in hockey, it is part of the game. It’s like telling the NFL that there shall be no more quarterback sacks. Give me a break!
Four years ago The Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine called on the National Hockey League to ban fighting. Groups like this are just contributing to the pansification of the game.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman admits fighting sells tickets and won’t ban it. Instead, the league will look at the rules of engagement when it comes to fighting. Nobody likes to see another player get sucker punched and hurt but an outright ban is not the answer.
I’m with Joe Thornton on this issue:
I think it would be a shame to take it out of the game. It’s part of hockey, like tying up your laces or shooting the puck. It’s been part of hockey for a long, long time.
Posted in Observations at 1:22 PM
Comments
When was the last time that you punched someone in the face repeatedly? When was the last time another person instructed you to punch someone in the face repeatedly - and you flipped a mental switch that allowed you to immediately comply? Do you consider yourself less brave for having not done that? Less courageous?
I want fighting permanently banned now. I want to tell Samuel that we banned fighting in our time. Your views on this are ignorant and offensive.
Posted by: Andy on January 29, 2009 7:24 PM
Jay,
Check out Rule #47 page 66-67 of the NHL rule book. It will tell you that fighting is not part of the game.
How does fighting improve the product of the game? Fighting creates a stop and flow to the game, and does not show case any hockey talent. If a rule is enforced then it must be something the league does not want to have in the game. If it is okay to fight and is part of the game why are players penailzed for it? What message is this sending to young people playing the game, it’s okay to fight on the ice but if you did it in another public place you would be charged with assult defined as:
“At Common Law, an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact”
Fighting sucks in the NHL a game that will not surrive if it continues to act the way it does.
JB
Posted by: JB on January 30, 2009 8:37 AM
Call me old fashioned but I love it when two tough guys drop the gloves and go a couple of rounds during a game.
The NHL rule book says that fighting isn’t a part of the game? Fighting may not be part of the rules but it is a tradition that has been around since day one. Traditions aren’t always a good thing but I’m with the neanderthals in the stands that love a good fight.
Posted by: Jay 
on January 30, 2009 10:04 AM
Andy - spoken like a true Vancouver “Sweden West” Canucks fan.
Posted by: Paul on January 30, 2009 3:35 PM
Back when I was a hockey fan I admit I wouldn’t change the channel when a fight started but it also certainly wasn’t something that made the games that much better for me either.
I was a diehard Leafs fan (*cough*) for years until about 10 years ago, when frustration with their complete ineptness and generally finding the gameplay in the league more boring made me completely lose interest in the NHL.
Nowadays, based on more of a peripheral view of the league via the complete inability to escape anything hockey related through the media living in this country, I now think fighting makes hockey a joke. There’s plenty of other things about the league that make it a joke: like keeping a filthy rich owner like Jim Balsillie out when so many U.S. teams are struggling and only having one team in Southern Ontario (the league’s biggest market), the laughable way the league hands down punishment, etc. But the fighting just makes it seem like such a Mickey Mouse operation IMO and if you need that to sell the game then what does that say about the quality of product that you’re putting on the ice?
Posted by: Drew on January 30, 2009 6:24 PM
Hockey,Violence,and Cooperalls
The first organized indoor hockey game was played at McGill University in 1875. According to the Montreal Gazette, the final score was “two games to the single†and spectators were “well satisfied with the evening’s entertainmentâ€.
At the end of the game, a brawl broke out between …
Read the rest of the article entitled Hockey,Violence,and Cooperalls at
Posted by: Warren Baker on July 25, 2009 1:19 PM
